A variety of filters have been designed, synthesized and used in the history of electronic and computer music. All the approaches aimed to provide filters fulfilling several specifications such as frequency response, phase response, transient state characteristics like rise time and overshoot, realizably conditions concerning the technology used for the implementation and even economical considerations. One of the most important aspects concerning the filters dedicated to musical applications is the control structure they provide to the musician, who is in charge for the integration of the filtering operation in the compositional process and performance. Designing filters using the mass interaction scheme embedded in the CORDIS-ANIMA formalism (used for sound synthesis and composition by physical modelling) offers a different methodology in the control which is coherent with the philosophy of musical composition by ‘physical thinking’. This article introduces a technique to design filters using the CORDIS-ANIMA simulation language.